Yes and No

I'm decidedly undecided. On the one hand, I'm glad to say that bigotry and boorishness thinly disguised as foreign policy and economic proposals did not get greeted with meek acceptance in my hometown. On the other hand, I continue to be devastated by the absolute vulgarity of the process by which we are supposed to be reviewing candidates for the presidency of the United States.

I don't care that the baseness is associated with one party or another. Both parties are American. The voters are American. The process is uniquely and entirely American. So is this who we are now?

My family is both Republican and Democrat. I say that because on 9/12/2001 there was absolutely no distinction in any of our minds as to who was American and who wasn't. We were all American and despite the despicable and intentional division that both parties continue to nurture before and since then, we are still all American brothers and sisters.

If you're not a Republican in this cycle and you are relishing in the disgustingness of this process, shame on you.  This is bad, bad, bad for the democracy. If you are a Republican, no more, but no less shame. You should be glad to lose if winning means any one of the cretins currently using your name should win.

Our next president will have been vetted through this process. And the ones that come after this will be those who don't get caught in this madness by accident or fate. No, the next round will be those who choose it. The one who wins that contest will be a person who looked at this discount-carnival-show and said, 'Yes, that suits me just fine.'

Is that who you want? You want that person to speak for all of us on the world stage? You want that person to be the one who demonstrates our greatness, a term which now causes guffaws in most circles when it's uttered about our country?

The best among the candidates on both sides is not particularly great, folks. So while I'm glad that the worst among them didn't get a chance to spew his spit and sputter here, I'm no more comforted in how truly terrible the situation has become. I'm not sure I can celebrate. I'm not sure we've won anything worth winning.